Browsys adds virtual search folders & Twoogle

Browsys is a multi search engine, in that it has a variety of tabs along the screen enabling you to run a search on your engine of choice. It's a nice engine that does a good job and if you've not tried it, I'd encourage you to do so. However, that's not the purpose of this post. They've recently added Virtual search folders as an option. This is a set of tabs that have been created and point to major sites that you might be interested in. There's the Google tools tab for example taking you to major Google sites, or the Technology or World News options. The idea is simple - you can use these as a quick way of browsing through sites that interest you - a little like the bookmarks option that you'll find in start pages.

What's interesting however is that you can save the tab to your browser, or send it to other people. I created a set of tabs for sites that are mine or linked to me in some way; weblog, site and so on. You'll need to look at the tabs at the top of screen to recognise this however, since you'll still see the default folders in the body of the page. I've added a screenshot for you:

My user created tabs are at the top, to the right of 'Start'. Annoyingly the 3 at the end are not mine (Wikipedia, Maps, YouTube), but the system seems to want 10 links and if you don't give it ten it simply adds in default options which is silly and annoying. I also couldn't see a way of adding the 'Phil Bradley' folder to the featured virtual folders. Even more annoying - when you leave the page you leave the folder behind as well - the only way of getting it back is to remember the link to it. This really restricts what you can do with this, and I hope that Browsys will find some way to overcome this since it's a fatal flaw in my opinion. If you could store these folders, make them default choices it would be a great idea to make that page a default browser home page for public machines. So, 8/10 for idea but only 4/10 for execution of concept.

The second resource Browsys has added is called Twoogle. No prizes if you've worked out that it's a cross over app for Twitter and Google. Screen shot below:

It's an okay application, except that you have to scroll horizontally in order to see the full content which is irritating. It does tend to leave me thinking 'Yes, and?' but perhaps that's just me.

Comments

[Juan Sosa]

Hello Phil, I'm Juan Sosa from Browsys. Thanks for your insightful review on Browsys Virtual Folders; We're working to raise that 4/10 on execution ;) As a start, We have addressed your concern about the default sites when you want an empty tab; now, an empty tab keeps empty.

About the impossibility to save a folder, please see the bright side of it: you don't need to sign up or register for the service, no usernames and passwords; instead, we provide a unique perpetual URL for your folder, which you can add to your favorites list, share on twitter, facebook, email it or even drag it to your browser's bookmarks bar. We don't see it as a shortcoming: it's just our approach to provide the best of two worlds: the ability to save your folder for sharing or future reference with a unique URL without the hassle of a signup/sign-in/sign-out.

We are working on the social aspect of Virtual Folders, to provide means for people to add their folders to a public directory and even rate other's folders with a ranking system, all of this aiming to make it easy and fun to discover quality content over the web.

Thanks again and please keep you opinions coming.
Sincerely,
Juan Sosa